I asked Joanne Hart if she and Joe could share with us here at Deaf Dogs Rock some information about the therapy dog organization they volunteer for with their deaf white boxer therapy dogs. So here is some good information for all of you out there training your deaf dogs to become therapy dogs. Feel free to comment at the bottom of the post if you have any questions or comments. Thanks,  Christina Lee – Deaf Dogs Rock

 

 

PAWS Therapy Dogs By : Joe Rittenhouse and Joanne Hart

PAWS Therapy dogs is an all volunteer therapy dog club in Lake County Florida. Our club consists of 61 paws families, 71 members, and 81 dogs making 103 therapy teams who are registered with Therapy Dogs Inc. PAWS teams proudly provide therapy for nursing homes, adult day care, special needs schools, as well as humane education, a reading program for all the students in Lake County Florida.

PAWS members believe in strengthening the community ties with yearly toy drives for the needy children, care bags for the seniors in nursing homes, food drives for local shelters, and quarterly classes that promote the joys of therapy work. PAWS Therapy dogs has an outstanding reputation in Lake County which we strive to uphold and with that reputation opens up invitations to a wide variety of community events such as parades, special visits, and events for animal rescues. Over the past few years PAWS therapy dogs have welcomed dogs with special needs and we promote dogs with special needs, as we feel all animals are created equal and should be treated that way.

PAWS therapy dogs doors are always opened to new members. Some of our members may have had therapy dogs who have passed or retired and still want to contribute in therapy work Some may associate therapy work as a senior activity, however, our group has a strong youth push and with that said it is great to see a resurgence of youth and excitement with all the members in the group.